StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Has the ST EU ever mentioned the Echo Papa 607 from the episode "Arsenal of Freedom"? Picard bought a state-of-the-art, fully automated weapon system (on behalf of the Federation, I assume), and no one ever mentions it during the Dominion War, or when the fleet needs to modernize to face the Borg. Would the Echo Papa 607 have proved useful in DS9, say, or guarding sector 000?

Useful as these I suspect: 3:10 - 3:15

Star Fleet Drones

The space version benefitted from being cloaked - which would naturally be removed to comply with the cloak ban.
Otherwise, they were hardly that impressive and Starfleet should be able to make superior versions IF they choose to do so.

Logically it would be a case of the Federation being too squeemish or not wise enough to employ the concept of automated weapon platforms.
Translation: They remain fucking idiots and waves of automated attack drones would remove the tragedy of losing red / gold shirts.

I would assume that, since Picard never actually paid for it, the system remained in payment acquisition mode, waiting patiently for Picard or someone else to come along and deposit the money to buy the system. Since there's not exactly any way to give the system the money, the entire thing remains shut down, and because the drones are cloaked and hidden away in some facility, I don't think anyone's exactly gone to get them.

Given that the drones were a threat to their original people, and that the drones were AIs, it was enough to make Starfleet hold off on actually researching them beyond reverse engineering some of the things that make them function. There seems to be a general distrust of complete automation in Starfleet, and with good reason. Most of the machinery that's put on fully automatic (with the exception of Data) tends to run amok fairly quickly. Sure, the Doctor is another good exception, but then again he's not programmed initially to take command of the ship, nor even leave sickbay. And the newer models tend to only allow the EMH doctors out for dire emergencies.

So I imagine that Echo Papa 607 is sitting in a crate somewhere with an address label marked "Bald Humanoid"